at the end of the celebration, which lasted nearly two hours, Philippe Barbarin has received any smile several gifts.
seventeen years, he led the diocese of Lyon. This Sunday, Archbishop Philippe Barbarin said “goodbye” to the faithful moved, before embarking on a new life as a simple chaplain after the storm caused by his silence in the face of pedophilia.
“I can today, after four difficult years, to say thank you to many of the world” for the “prayers, attentions and delicacies,” said the archbishop emeritus, the justice was acquitted on appeal in January.
As of 10: 30, about 400 people, mostly masked, had taken place in the interior of the cathedral Saint-Jean, located in the district of Old Lyon and which the places had been limited due to a health environment.
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at the time of the Covid, they lent themselves to the washing required of the hands with a hydroalcoholic gel before being invited to sit on plastic chairs, instead of benches old wood. A contactless payment was available for the quest. For the other faithful, the mass of thanksgiving was streamed live on the video platform YouTube.
This is the apostolic administrator of a diocese, Bishop Michel Dubost, who welcomed the cardinal Barbarin, who came in great pomp in his vestments of a prelate, with a mitre and crosier of the bishop. “It seemed to me impossible that you are leaving the diocese without we tell you solemnly thank you,” he said to the prelate of 69 years of age who renounced the title of primate of the Gauls, in march and whose successor has yet to be announced.
a Few local personalities are associated with this tribute, among which the former keeper of the Seals centrist, Michel Mercier, vice-president of the region Etienne Blanc (LR), the industrial Alain Mérieux, or the rector of the Great Mosque of Lyon, Kamel Kabtane.
“With his guts”
With the phrasing staccato that characterizes it, the cardinal Barbarin thanked Bishop Dubost for the choice of this “beautiful date” the Saint Irenaeus (the second bishop of Lyon, editor’s note) for the “goodbye”.
In his homily, it is primly income over the period of his trial in 2019, for his silence on the actions pedophile a former priest of his diocese, Bernard Preynat, evoking “a long trial”. “A great tragedy had happened in the diocese of Lyon. It was necessary that I bear this suffering as unquestionably and that they make right in front of the justice, and at the same time I knew that I was not alone,” said the cardinal.
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at the end of the celebration, which lasted nearly two hours, Philippe Barbarin has received any smile several gifts, including a pectoral cross and a book of thanks. Jackpot online has been open to him in offer other.
“let us Pray that the Word of God continue its course,” concluded in thunderous applause the man of the Church, which is to be expected as the chaplain of the mother house of the Little Sisters of the poor in Saint-Pern (Ille-et-Vilaine). “My true vocation is to be a priest”, had said on Thursday on the radio RCF Lyon Mgr Barbarin, ensuring to receive “with joy” “a return to the calm after the storm”.
He also referred to the future possible missions abroad, including the middle East. “It was a very beautiful mass and a wonderful homily from Bishop Barbarin like most of his homilies that carry us, that touch us and speak to us at the bottom of the heart. Has its own image. We are all very touched to see him go because he is an exceptional man,” said “very moved” Cécile Fakhri, 50 years old, wiping away her tears on the parvis of the cathedral.
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The cases of pedophilia in the diocese of Lyon
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Even echo to her neighbor, Joelle Ethevenaux, the sixties, for that Philippe Barbarin is “a good person”, of”humble” but “who speaks with his guts.” “I think there’s a time for everything, but I regret that he left so quickly. He would have been able to stay longer.”
